


Happy to Help

by HK44



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 02:27:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28610562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HK44/pseuds/HK44
Summary: Nico croaked out no words. His lips were nearly blue, his voice cracked. A large gash was sliced up the side of his face. His eyes were lidded but unfocused."Hey!" Hermes barked at the staring nymph. "Not a word."No one on Olympus needed to know he was here right now. No doubt they'd throw a fit about his presence - in both life and on their mountain. She nodded mutely before turning around and rushing off.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 26





	Happy to Help

He glanced down the long shiny hallway and froze to a stop. Bleeding and hunched over, Nico laid. The nymph at his side stilled, skin growing cold at the sight. Not the blood, not the injuries - just him.

_Dumb_ , Hermes thought as he abandoned their conversation about a bank heist to go pick up the dying remains of his boss's only living mortal son. What was to be concerned about a little boy? A dying little boy at that.

Nico croaked out no words. His lips were nearly blue, his voice cracked. A large gash was sliced up the side of his face. His eyes were lidded but unfocused.

"Hey!" Hermes barked at the staring nymph. "Not a word."

No one on Olympus needed to know he was here right now. No doubt they'd throw a fit about his presence - in both life and on their mountain. She nodded mutely before turning around and rushing off.

He watched her carefully before bounding off to his room in a few short steps. He flicked his wrist. The couch perched against the wall flopped out into a medical cot. He laid Nico down, humming to himself. How many times had he done this before for them? Finding them struggling to apply their own bandages or slather nectar onto a spot they couldn't reach, Apollo's so-called healer children turning them away whether injured minorly or grievously.

Sometimes he understood where Zagreus was coming from. Sometimes he agreed with him.

He stripped Nico of his pants and shirt. A makeshift tourniquet was wrapped around his leg, bloodied and dirtied so horribly he couldn't even tell what the original fabric was, much less the colour.

People looked at him and saw messenger or thief - always running. But he had other qualities too. Medical expertise was something he was both symbolized for and yet forgotten. His caduceus was plastered across hospitals and Red Cross bags and yet people pointed at his image and said, “Oh right the thief guy”.

“Deep breaths,” he said, even though Nico’s glassy eyed stared indicated he wasn’t listening - couldn’t listen.

His knee was popped back into place and he cried, eyes squeezing shut. “ _Ahhh.”_

“ _Shhh_ ,” Hermes whispered, petting back his hair. He reached into his bag and pulled out some premium ambrosia he’d been saving for a special occasion. He cracked it into little pieces, feeding Nico with one hand while stripping him off his rotting dressings with the other.

This was going to take a lot of time

* * *

"You're up."

Nico rubbed his eyes weakly, half slumped against the doorframe. He didn't answer or respond back, just took in Hermes' living room with a quiet solitude that reminded the god too much of his father.

"I thought it'd be more cluttered," he mumbled before limping his way to Hermes' side. "Like a dragon's nest."

Hermes snorted. "I'm very organized."

Nico sat down weakly at the table, fiddling with the clean bandage wrapped around his fingers and right hand. "I'm sorry," he said, voice so quiet Hermes almost didn't hear him. "I was just thinking of help and home and-"

"Don't worry about it." Hermes flipped through a SkyMall catalogue. "Don't tell anyone but I do this a lot for you deadlings." Nico's weak face broke out into a tired half-grin. "Not to be morbid, but you're often left for dead. And frankly, carrying you down to the Underworld is just a little bit-"

He faded. There was... a long history of Underworld kids versus children of Olympus. And as Hades took the brunt of the dislike and distrust on Olympus, by other gods and creatures, his children took the brunt of it by demigods and mortals and gods and creatures. He still couldn't tell if was just the cruelty of the Fates or something they took on themselves.

Better to suffer in multitudes than watch others suffer.

Weren't they all a little self-sacrificing?

He dropped his gaze and glanced over at Nico. His sister - Hermes hadn't picked her up and Thanatos hadn't either. Macaria had done that herself and she'd held her little soul in her hands all the way to the Judgement Hall. And Bianca was judged fairly and sent off and as all his Greek children tended to, she wandered aimlessly around her own domain and refused all calls from little brother.

Romans were less inclined on the death side of things. Most of them remained themselves, but they chose to stay where they were. Or observe the mines sometimes. Make sure all the wealth being dug was accounted for.

But they didn't wander. They could care less for the operations of the dead. Opposite that, the Greeks ignored the mines and floundered from soul to soul.

Last he checked Bianca was sitting in Elysium, helping Macaria oversee the work there. And Nico was here, alone, calling out to someone who would never answer.

"What happened?" he asked. A wave of his hand and a fresh grilled cheese sandwich plodded its way onto the table.

"Ambush," Nico muttered. "I-" He faltered. "I was trying something."

Hermes hummed. Nico stared at the sandwich fleetingly before _finally_ accepting it. “You know, our offer to train you is still on the table. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Self-sacrificing and lonely.

“I’m fine,” Nico mumbled around the bread.

“Some of those wounds were self-inflicted, kid.” Hermes glanced down at the catalogue again. “I’m _hoping_ by accident but either way...”

The sandwich was gone in seconds. He summoned another one. Nico took just as long to pick it up as the first one but downed it just as quick.

Slumped out in the alley of some backwoods town. The only reason Hermes even found him was because he’d been keeping track of him. They all had - even as Hades grit his teeth and told them to _stop_. Too much attention on one little demigod - especially from a gaggle of Underworld gods - was a risk.

Percy had already been forced into the prophecy spotlight following Thalia’s refusal to age and that made everyone squint nervously at Poseidon. Imagine if a child of Hades, situated right above Tartarus, so close, a child always _outcasted_ by the same society he was destined to save or destroy, was discovered.

They’d cull him so quick. Erase the risk before it even had time to become one. Before he even had time to choose.

It’d happened before.

Hermes had made many mistakes in his past when it came to these kids. It was hard being an Olympian _and_ being an Underworld entity. Zagreus may have liked to pretend he was secretly a spy for the Underworld but it was never true. He had to protect the interests of both places - not just one.

He wasn’t like his sister. She craved the darkness. She tried every year, harder and harder, to minimize her time on the surface. During the winters she could go wherever she wanted. During the summers, she was resigned to the spot under her mother’s thumb.

He was not that.

But, for right now, he was choosing death. The dead. The end of all things. Darkness and punishment and endless wandering.

“What would you even teach me?” Nico asked after a few minutes of anxious silence.

“Stealth,” Hermes offered. “The ability to actually bandage yourself up in a way that actually _works_.” Nico snorted, looking down to his lap. “And that’s just me, kid. Everyone else wants to help. You know who you are. You shouldn’t have to be afraid of what you can do.”

“I’m not,” Nico said but he fisted his hands nervously, his brows furrowed. He cleared his throat. “Okay,” he continued testily. “Um... I’ll- I’ll take a couple lessons.”

Hermes grinned. “Great. Rest up first. We don’t really work at mortal limitations so you’ll _definitely_ need all you got.”

Nico rolled his eyes before clearing his throat, looking away again. “Can I- Can you-” He glanced at the plate. Hermes didn’t wait for him to finish. Just summoned a whole batch of warm sandwiches. Nico exhaled softly. “Thank you.”

“Happy to help.”


End file.
